


Now Until Forever

by annelesbonny



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Romance, at least by my standards, holiday themed nonsense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:27:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21910714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelesbonny/pseuds/annelesbonny
Summary: Quentin Coldwater has always wanted to be a writer. And he is, more or less, though journalism was never supposed to be anything more than a way to support himself while he worked on his novel. When Margo asks him to take over writing for the The Coastal Review’s online column, The Heart Healer, he doesn’t feel like he can say no. It turns out though, that writing ‘from the heart’ is a hell of a lot harder than he anticipated, especially when his own heart feels more than a little bruised these days.When a plane crashes off the coast of Virginia, killing everyone on board, Quentin unexpectedly finds a note written by one of the dead passengers to someone addressed only has “J”. There’s a story here that might save not only his job, but also his belief that writing can do something other than drain the life out of him. With the help of Eliot Waugh, his friend/coworker/maybe something more, Quentin begins his search for “J”, determined to deliver this final message while learning a little about grief, letting go, and finding the love that’s been in front of him this whole time.
Relationships: Kady Orloff-Diaz/Julia Wicker, Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eliotsvests (surprisegents)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surprisegents/gifts).



_Now Until Forever_

* * *

Chapter One

Quentin Coldwater stares at his computer screen and thinks, not for the first time, that maybe his mother had been right. 

_“It’s just that you’re not very good at finishing what you start, Quentin. And isn’t that something a writer should be able to do? I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, darling.”_

That was after he’d won his first writing contest and confidently declared that he was only going to be a writer from now until forever. He was nine and the story was terrible, but the sentiment remained. Now, until forever. 

Even almost a decade later, his byline having graced several successful articles, a couple of which he’s managed to remain proud of, despite his crippling need to second guess his own work to death, he’s never been able to escape her voice in his head, not completely. 

Quentin closes his eyes, lets his head fall forward, hitting his keyboard with a dull thunk. 

“I suppose that’s one way to approach writer’s block, though I can’t imagine the success rate is particularly high.”

He can’t quite prevent his smile. Eliot. 

“I think it’s going really well actually,” Quentin says into his keyboard. 

Eliot makes a small, commiserative noise, runs his hand along the curve of Quentin’s back as he moves behind him and further into the little nook Quentin claimed as his own back when he first started writing for The Coastal Review almost four years ago now. His desk takes up most of the space, sturdy polished wood the surface of which is covered in a mess of papers, notebooks, coffee mugs in various degrees of emptiness, and more paperbacks than he’ll ever have the time to read. A large window takes up most of the wall behind his chair, a leather monstrosity that is almost obscenely comfortable, and that’s where Eliot takes up his usual position, leaning back against the window sill, arms crossed loosely across his chest. 

Quentin sits up, rubs tiredly at his eyes and reaches for the nearest coffee mug, fingers fumbling for the handle. Before he can lift it to his mouth, Eliot snatches it out of his hands. 

“Ah. ah, ah, Q darling, you do _not_ want that anywhere near your mouth. I think there’s something growing in it.”

Eliot delicately sets the mug down on the window sill next to him. 

“That tracks,” Quentin sighs, and drags his hands down his face wearily. 

Wind rattles the window behind them, branches scraping up against the glass. It’s the middle of September, and things are starting to die. The trees are aflame, leaves on the cusp of falling, ready to cover the ground in a mosaic of color, oranges and reds and yellows and purples, unfurling like a quilt stitched together with the remnants of a season. 

Fall, and the steady march towards winter, are always rough for Quentin, who doesn’t so much have seasonal depression as general depression that gets worse depending on the season. And right now, it’s the perfect storm of shit he isn’t ready to deal with. 

Margo Hanson, editor of _The Coastal Review_ , his sometime friend and all time boss, has given him a new assignment and so far, it isn’t going well. _The Heart Healer_ , the magazine’s hold-over column from the early 2000s, complete with a garish pink header, dotted with pixelated red hearts, is more than due for an update and Margo’s decided that Quentin’s the one to do the job. Quentin, for his part, is not so sure. _The Heart Healer_ is supposed to be a column about love and-- and feelings, and his heart is more than a little bruised these days. 

“Quentin? Q, you still in there?” Eliot’s voice breaks through the fog clouding his mind, and Quentin blinks. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I-- was just thinking about that column Margo wants me to write. Got a little caught up, I guess.” 

“Hm, well, then you’re going to love what I have to say next,” Eliot makes a face. “Margo wants to see you.”

Quentin groans, twists around his chair so he can glare at Eliot properly. 

“Wow, El, way to bury the fucking lead.”

“Sorry,” Eliot says, not sounding sorry. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”

  
  


It was. It was something serious. Margo is standing when he enters her office, back facing him. A single awkward beat paces, and then she turns. 

“Sit down, Coldwater,” she says, half a sigh.

Quentin sits. The upholstered chair Margo keeps on the other side of her desk is just a little too soft, and Quentin sinks into the cushion, feeling slightly ridiculous. Margo takes her seat behind her desk, steeples her fingers under her chin, and stares at him. 

And stares at him.

And keeps staring at him. 

Finally, he can’t take it anymore. “Sorry, do I have something on my face or--”

“Shut up, Q. I’m trying to think of a nice way to say this.”

That does manage to shut him up for about half a second. 

“But _why--_?” he starts, but breaks off at her withering glare. 

Then, Margo sort of shrugs, something she still manages to make look effortlessly elegant. Seriously, it’s incredibly unfair that Quentin has to work in the same place as her _and_ Eliot. 

“Good point,” she says. “Quentin, you need to increase traffic on _The Heart Healer_ column, or I’m giving it to Penny.”

Well, shit. It’s not like he’s emotionally attached to the future of the damn column in general, but he’d told Margo he wanted to increase his online presence for the magazine and this was how she was letting him do it. Instead, he hasn’t been able to write a fucking word that he doesn’t hate in over a month and now he’s going to lose his chance to fucking Penny, who is such a dick and--

“Whoa, okay, let’s not go full speed ahead on the anxiety train quite yet, okay?” Margo’s voice cuts him off mid-spiral. “You have time, Q. Until Christmas at the very least. I know--,” she pauses, visibly gathers herself. “I know things have been rough lately and I’m not trying to add to it, but--.”

“You need me to do my job.” He offers her a small smile. “I get it, Margo. I’ll have something for you soon, I promise.”

“Yeah?” Her eyes spark with interest. “Got something in mind?”

He snorts. “Not even remotely.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“Get out of my office, Coldwater.”

He does. 

  
  


The rest of the day passes strangely. At times, time feels like it’s blurring by and he’s just along for the ride, while at other times, Quentin genuinely wonders if he’s going to die of old age before five o’clock rolls around. Whether it’s all too soon or at long last, the day ends and people start to filter out of the building. Quentin waits for the rush to die down before he stands up, joints popping like he’s 78, not 28, and shoves his laptop into his bag. He flips off the light on his desk, grimaces at the old coffee mugs, tells himself that he really is going to tidy up soon— tomorrow definitely— and heads out. 

The sun is setting, throwing beams of pink and orange across the sidewalk as Quentin walks home. Leaves crunch beneath his boots and an evening wind stirs his hair, creeps below his collar, making him shiver. It’s November, crisp and beautiful and achingly lonely. It’s the first holiday season since his dad died. 

He doesn’t want to think about that, he _can’t_ think about that; not right now, not when everything’s— like this. He has to get his other shit together before he can even begin to unpack something as uniquely horrible as holiday grief. 

_The_ Heart _Healer_ . Jesus fuck, what had he been _thinking_? 

(He’d been thinking he was drowning and desperate for something, _anything_ to distract him from the unrelenting exhaustion of grief. He’d been thinking that if he doesn’t do something good he’s going to do something stupid and permanent instead. He’d been thinking that he was alive and his dad wasn’t and there had to be something he could do with that.)

Quentin decides he actually doesn’t want to know what he’d been thinking, and instead focuses on not tripping up the slick concrete stairs leading to his apartment. He fumbles with his key ring, cold metal slipping between his fingers, but after another moment, he’s inside and the door shuts behind him, sealing out the wind along with the world, at least for a little while. 

He tosses his keys in the coffee table’s general direction, and bends down to unlace his boots. Like clockwork, Plum hurdles around the corner, nails clicking against wood laminate as she throws her whole kitty body at his face, purring madly. Quentin huffs a soft laugh, scratches her chin long enough to distract her from his shoelaces, and then scoops her up in one arm, the other letting his messenger bag fall to the floor with a decidedly defeated sounding _thump_. 

He collapses onto the couch, a faded blue behemoth that’s almost dangerously comfortable; he’s fallen asleep here rather than in his bed less than a room away more than once. Plum settles herself on his arm, wedging herself between the cushion and his body. Her claws sink into his sweater and then retract, a steady rhythm of kneading and Quentin finally feels some of the stress start to ebb out of his body. He closes his eyes.

****

Quentin wakes up the next morning strung out and exhausted, despite falling asleep almost the moment he got home and not stirring until his alarm went off the next morning. He doesn’t see the news until he gets into the office and is smacked in the face with a folder.

“Shit! I mean shoot, I mean sorry about that, Mr. Coldwater!” Todd rambles, trying to steady the teetering pile of papers in his arms with only one hand, which is also currently gripping a coffee mug, and his teeth. Todd has been his assistant since Margo deemed Quentin competent enough to need an assistant, and Todd is— well, he’s Todd. 

Quentin sighs. 

“Don’t worry about it, Todd,” he says, summoning a smile. “Also, if you call me Mr. Coldwater one more time, I’m finding a way to fire you.”

Todd blinks, expression morphing into something slightly sheepish. “Right, sorry, Mr— Quentin, I mean. Quentin,” he repeats, with the air of someone trying on a coat they’re not sure they like yet. “Ah, you should probably get in there, though,” Todd says, glancing over his shoulder with a grimace. “Ms. Hanson wants someone on that plane crash, like, yesterday.”

Then he’s stepping around Quentin, precariously piled papers and all, leaving him to wonder, _what_ plane crash?

Fortunately, it doesn’t take him long to find out, as he steps further into the office and is greeted by sheer chaos. Margo’s shouting, Penny’s shouting back, someone’s rolled in the TV from the conference room and the volume is turned up on the local news channel. He doesn’t see Eliot. 

A small passenger plane crashed off the coast, very close to Virginia Beach. No one survived. All Quentin can think is, _but Thanksgiving’s next week_. 

As if that matters, as if tragedy has ever once noted the date on the calendar and thought, maybe I’ll put this off until spring. 

Apparently, he won’t be the only making room for grief this holiday season. 

“Q?” Eliot’s voice, as warm and sweet as the hot cocoa his dad used to make for him everyday after school once the weather started getting colder, wraps around him from behind. 

“Hey, El,” Quentin says, turning around to face him, and feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders, only to be replaced by concern flaring because Eliot looks— well, a little rough. 

Vest unopened, shirt just shy of being obviously wrinkled, and wearing yesterday’s tie, Eliot looks like he hasn’t slept since about then either. 

“Are you okay?” Quentin asks, grabbing Eliot by the arm before he can stop himself. 

“I— yes,” Eliot blinks down at him and the hand on his arm. “It’s just— I think someone I used to know was on that plane.”

“Fuck, Eliot, I’m so sorry.”

He wants to say more, to ask what he needs, how he can help, offer better condolences, but all the words dry up in his throat. It seems he isn’t any better at giving them as he is at receiving them, apparently. 

Eliot offers him a distracted, sad sort of smile. 

“He was an ex. A particularly awful one at that. But still, it’s-- odd, at least.”

It’s more than that, obviously, but Quentin isn’t good at pushing and Eliot isn’t good at being pushed so they leave it there. 

“Coldwater!” Margo’s voice cracks like a whip over the chaos in the office.

Quentin winces, and Eliot pats his shoulder sympathetically. 

“You should probably get that,” he says with a wry smile that’s just a little strained. 

Quentin makes a face at him, and then follows the melodious sound of Margo’s voice. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Q disassociates a whole lot, worries his friends, and finds a note.

Chapter Two 

The first few days after the crash are relentless, a steady stream of media coverage, memorials, and displays of mass public mourning. Quentin comes in early and doesn’t leave until well past sunset and he still hasn’t made one substantial post on The Heart Healer. Knowing that the headache already pounding behind his eyes is only going to get worse, he decides to use his lunch hour to escape the office, buttoning his wool jacket up to his chin and slipping out into the brisk, early afternoon air. The cold bites at his cheeks and he shoves his hands deep into his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the wind. 

He finds himself veering away from town, from the bustle of people and the sounds of the world moving on, moving forward, always forward. 

Instead, his feet take a crooked path along the coast. 

Quentin has a tenuous relationship with the ocean. He loves how it looks, the sheer magnitude of the water’s surface, stretching out, out, out, far beyond anything he could ever hope to see, loves the sound of waves crashing against rock and sand shores. But the ocean is terrifying— an entity in and of itself, carelessly consuming everything that gets in its way. There is a vastness, an unknowable depth to the water, to this ocean he’s lived next to his entire life that scares the absolute shit out of him. The potential to disappear completely, the _temptation_ , is right there. 

He walks. The sand is stiff beneath his boots, packed down and frozen by the winter wind. For a long time, the only sounds are his own breathing and the rhythmic thud of wave on rock. Quentin’s mind drifts. 

Voices interrupt his daze, and he realizes with a jolt that he has walked much farther than intended. Ahead of him, there is a small group of people, huddled around a wilted memorial wreath. Someone who looks like vaguely minister-like is droning about grief and God. As he’s had more than enough of both lately, Quentin tries to duck around them, walking closer to the shore and picking his way carefully along the rocks. He shifts his weight and his foot slips. He throws himself forward, falling harder than expected. A sharp line of pain slices across his palm, but he barely notices it, having caught on to something far more interesting. 

There’s a piece of bright orange material caught between some rocks and the water. Quentin crawls closer to the water, leans down just far enough to snag it between his fingertips. He pulls, and a moment later, the remains of an emergency flotation device are spread on the sand in front of him. 

Holy shit. 

It’s from the plane, it _has_ to be from the plane. He’s pretty sure that he can make out the name of the airline on one side, but the location alone is enough to make him pretty positive that he just stumbled across a part of the wreckage. He touches the slick, rubber-like fabric almost reverently, morbidly fascinated by this tiny piece of tragedy, tangible under his hand. 

His fingernail catches on something. Frowning, Quentin carefully removes a plastic bag, sealed and wedged into the lining. There’s something inside. He opens the bag slowly, peeling apart the salt-stiff plastic and gently pulls out a piece of paper, folded twice. 

Quentin’s breath catches in his throat. Is it-- 

It is. It’s a note, written in pen on a scrap of paper probably torn from a book. The blue ink has bled a little, but it’s remarkably legible, almost miraculously so considering where it came from, what it managed to survive when so much, and so many, didn’t. He reads the words once, twice before his vision blurs and his eyes burn and there are tears on his cheeks that he doesn’t remember crying. 

> _J,_
> 
> _All is forgiven._
> 
> _Love, Dad_

  
  
Three minutes. That’s what the experts were saying— three minutes between when the pilot knew there was nothing to be done and the explosion that claimed the lives of everyone on board. 

Three minutes. 

180 seconds. 

About as long as he microwaves a plate of pizza rolls. 

That’s how much time they would have had, everyone on that plane, the man who wrote this note, three minutes between being alive and being dead. 

It’s an almost stupidly morbid thought to fixate on, but fixate on it he does during the long walk back to the office. He’s more than blown past his lunch hour by now, and somewhere in the back of his mind he hopes that Margo won’t be too mad at him. The note feels heavy in his pocket, the implications of it spinning through his mind. 

What had he been thinking of, in that last moment, those three minutes, the 180 seconds before it was all over?

Who was J, and did they know they were forgiven?

“Quentin!” The sound of someone shouting his name pulls him from his thoughts. “Jesus _fuck_ , I knew you were an idiot, Coldwater, but you didn’t have to go and prove it so spectacularly.”

Ah, Penny’s here, his brain registers vaguely. Quentin frowns as Penny reaches him, grips his shoulders firmly, looks him up and down like he’s checking for injuries (which would be ridiculous— this is Penny and Penny _hates_ him), and then shoves Quentin away from him with a noise of disgust, which is much more on brand. 

“What are you talking about? Also, don’t push me, you dick, are you five?” Quentin says with a glare, but doesn’t resist as Penny prods him back towards the office. His body finally seems to be registering the cold, and The Coastal Review with it’s soft butter lights and central heating is looking more and more appealing by the minute. 

“A five year old has more brains than you. You just fucking disappeared for hours, man. Your boy has been losing his shit, and it is _very_ annoying.”

“I— my _what—_ you mean _Eliot_? That’s— he’s not— I wasn’t even gone for that long!” Quentin sputters, his face is on fire, Penny is just fucking smirking at him like an asshole and— 

“Q!” That’s Eliot’s voice, though a little higher and strained in a way Quentin hasn’t heard before. 

Quentin steps away from Penny with one final glare, and directly into Eliot’s arms, the man somehow having managed to fucking apparate to Quentin’s side. He startles a little, then sinks into the hug, shivering slightly as Eliot’s warmth engulfs him.

“ _Quentin,”_ Eliot says his name again, a shaky exhale against his ear as his arms tighten around him. 

“Q, where did you _go_?” Eliot’s voice shakes a little.

Quentin blinks up at him, confused and more than a little tired. 

“My lunch— I just, went for a walk. Actually, El, I found something that I really think—”

He fumbles for his pocket, but Eliot catches his wrist. 

“Q, it’s almost _4 o’clock_ . You’ve been gone for _hours_.”

“What? No, I was just…” Quentin trails off as he glances at his watch. 3:47. Oh.

“Margo’s going to kill me.”

Eliot sighs, draping one long arm over Quentin’s shoulders.

“Probably, but not for the reason you think.”

  
  


Less than half an hour later, Eliot’s jacket wrapped around his shoulders and Todd hovering anxiously behind him, Quentin thinks he gets it. 

“I should kick your ass, Coldwater, I really should. You made me worry. I don’t _want_ to worry! I have better things to do.”

Margo glares at him, but the effect is slightly ruined by the faint redness around her eyes. She’d been worried about him after all; all of them had been, apparently. Honestly, Quentin’s a little worried about himself. Disassociating for two hours outside and alone with no awareness of the passage of time isn’t a habit he particularly wants to pick up either. 

He rubs his eyes and offers her his best approximation of a smile. 

“I really am sorry, Margo. I just— got lost in my head for awhile. It won’t— Oh!” In the recent chaos, he’d forgotten about the note in his pocket. “I found something, though. I think it’s from the crash.”

He pulls out the remains of the floatation device and the note, carefully sealed back up in it’s plastic baggie. Margo’s eyebrows arch and the look in her eye shifts from concerned exasperation to sharp curiosity. Quentin takes that as permission to keep going.

“We’ll need to confirm with the airline that this is one of their flotation devices, but after that… Margo, there’s a note. Someone left a note for their kid. There are no names, but I think I can— well, I want to try, at least, to find the person the note is for. And I’ll write about it on _The Heart Healer_. I mean, it’s kind of perfect for that, right? It’s—”

Margo interrupts him. “Let me see it.”

“What?” It takes Quentin a moment to catch up, his mind already half-writing the first post. 

“The note, Q,” she says, with only a hint of an eye roll. “Show it to me.”

“Oh, right, yeah— hold on.” 

He unfolds the note and hands it to her, watches her face as she reads. For a split second, he thinks he sees something, some kind of complicated emotion that flashes across her face and then vanishes, but when she looks up, there’s nothing. 

Margo sighs. But Quentin knows that sigh, and he jumps to his feet, smile breaking across his face. 

“Have something for me by the end of the week. And for fuck’s sake, Q, let El drive you home. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Quentin does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little short, and I don' t love it, but new chapter yay. Once again, check out the truly breathtaking art for this fic [here](https://eliotsvests.tumblr.com/post/189784773843/quentin-has-a-rough-time-working-on-his-next)!
> 
> Also, for anyone who needs it, the note Quentin finds says:  
> J,  
> All is forgiven.  
> Love, Dad


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Quentin gets a ride home and writes something he doesn't hate.

Chapter Three 

The ride home is quiet, the careful silence only broken by the sounds of their breathing and the restless tapping of Eliot’s fingers against the steering wheel. Quentin fiddles with the radio to have something to do with his hands. He feels tired down to his bones, which isn’t exactly new, but it feels like _more_ , somehow. Like energy and life and— and everything is being sucked out of him, ground into dust underneath the heel of whatever the fuck even is existence between the ages of 24 and 33.

“Sorry,” Quentin says abruptly, determinedly folding his hands in his lap. “You really didn’t have to drive me. Margo is just—.”

“What, Q?” Eliot interrupts, his voice unexpectedly hard. “Margo is just what? Worried? About you? About whatever the fuck is going on in that infuriating, beautiful brain of yours?”

“I mean. If you put it that way,” Quentin says carefully, risking the smallest of smiles in Eliot’s direction.

Eliot sighs. 

“Don’t be the death of me, Coldwater. My dance card is full in that regards.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “Oh, so in other regards you’re wide open?”

Eliot gives him the shadow of the smirk. “I could be.”

Before he can respond to whatever _that’s_ supposed to mean, they’re pulling up to Quentin’s place and he can see Plum’s small, dumb face peering down at him from the living room window. She’s probably hungry, and Quentin’s head is already spinning so he doesn’t protest when Eliot reaches over him and opens the passenger’s side door, the warmth of his arm pressing against Quentin’s stomach. He walks up to his door, the cold nipping at his ears and fingers, giving into the urge to look over his shoulder, just for a moment, to see Eliot watching him from his car, waiting until Quentin pulls the door shut behind him, cutting off the winter wind and the glare of headlights, to drive away.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Morning comes and goes and Quentin slumps back in his chair, rubs at the space between his brows with his thumb, and decides that he doesn’t completely hate what he’s just written. 

It’s a win that cannot be overstated. He smiles a little helplessly and takes a sip from his coffee mug, the one with the words **YOU TWAT** wrapped around the front in bold, black lettering, a gift from Margo in the last office holiday exchange. The coffee has long gone cold, but he hardly notices, instead staring at the document in front of him, feeling the first, dangerous stirrings of passion, the rush that comes from discovering a story worth telling. 

He hasn’t felt it in a very long time. 

His computer chimes quietly, and an email notification from Margo pops up in the corner of the screen. Quentin trips his way out of his chair and towards her office before the notification has even disappeared. 

“Ah, Quentin. I see you didn’t open my email.” Margo looks up from her desk, sharp as ever, but a tiny smile curls one side of her mouth. 

“What did they say? Is it—?”

“It’s from the plane. The airline just confirmed.”

Quentin exhales sharply. “Okay. Okay, now what?”

Margo smiles, shark-like and stunning. 

“Tell the story. Find J. Write me some good shit, Coldwater.”

  


Finding the unknown J starts, as the best things do, with a deep dive into obituaries. Quentin compiles a list of the deceased, male passengers and goes from there. For the next several hours, he scrolls through pages and pages of final goodbyes and expressions of grief. His search takes him from local newspapers to facebook pages, age and gender runs the gamut as well, and by the time Eliot’s tell-tale footsteps approach from behind, Quentin’s head is spinning. 

“Hey,” Eliot says quietly. “Get a drink with me, Q. Don’t stare at this stuff all night.”

“I—,” Quentin almost says no, but the temptation to keep going is tempered by the bone-deep fatigue pulling at every part of him. At some point, he’s become self-aware enough to know the last thing he needs right now is to be alone with his thoughts. 

He rubs his eyes, summons a smile and blinks up at Eliot. “Um, actually, yeah. I’d like that.”

Eliot snaps his fingers and Quentin’s chair spins him around and away from his computer. “Excellent. First round’s on you.”

Eliot turns on his heel and starts walking away, Quentin scrambling after him, snagging his coat and bag, already protesting. 

“El, _you_ invited _me_!”

“Mm, and you’re welcome for that. Honestly, what would you do without me?”

They bicker their way to the small bar a couple of blocks away, a pub style hole-in-the-wall called The Library that serves as a regular haunt for _The Coastal Review_ ’s staff. Eliot leads Quentin to a small corner booth once they get their drinks, and Quentin sinks into the worn leather seat with a grateful sigh. 

Eliot smirks at him over the lip of his cocktail glass. “A boy and his house red wine.”

Quentin rolls his eyes, and sips the exceedingly average Malbec with more haughtiness than it deserves, but Eliot laughs and Quentin feels lighter than he has in awhile. The plane crash startled him out of his holiday-themed grief spiral and he really does think he has the start of something good with the note story, but he also knows himself. Distraction tactics are kind of his thing. Come to think of it, they’re also kind of Eliot’s, too. 

“So, uh, how are you doing? I mean, with everything?” Quentin says, too much of a coward to ask Eliot about his ex directly. 

Eliot, of course, knows exactly what he’s trying to dance around, and grimaces into his cocktail. 

“I never told you about Mike, did I?” Eliot doesn’t wait for an answer; they both know the question was rhetorical. “It’s not a very interesting story. Met when I was a freshman in college and he was a junior, went out to a few clubs, fucked in a couple more, and then I found out the farm-fed Republican had a pretty, blonde, very pretty fiance back home on the range.”

That. 

Well. 

He— 

Quentin takes a deep breath, sets down his glass, and reaches across the table to cover Eliot’s hand with his own. “Eliot,” he says gently. “He was a _Republican_.”

Eliot blinks at him, mouth open slightly, startled, before breaking into a wide, genuine smile, the one that crinkles his eyes and summons a storm of butterflies in Quentin’s stomach. 

“You’re such a dick, Q.” Eliot sounds a little bit delighted, and which is enough for Quentin, who picks up his wine again, taking a smug, happy sip. 

“Sorry,” Quentin says, not sounding sorry.

“This is why I like you, you know. Sweet as a peach until suddenly. Full dick mode.”

“Full dick mode? Really, El?”

“What? I think it works on multiple levels.”

The rest of the evening is spent in wine and cocktails and the half-flirting, half-arguing that the two of them are so very good at. Eventually, Quentin walks himself home, still a little lost in the warmth that had reflected in Eliot’s eyes as they stood outside the bar, both of them throwing goodbyes into the wind and waiting for one of them to stick. 

Later that night Quentin sits on his couch, Plum curled up on his feet and snoring softly, laptop in front of him, staring at the garish, orange _Publish_ button hovering in the right hand corner of the screen. He knows what he wants to say, thinks that he’s gotten it right, that there’s something here that he needs to get right, no matter the other shit raining down on him at any other time. 

But is it good? 

He doesn’t know, but he thinks he’s going to publish it anyways. Because he’s a little drunk on the liquid gold of Eliot’s eyes and the bottom shelf whiskey he saves for late night writing sessions, and nothing seems as important as telling the truth as he sees it. 

  


_Excerpt from The Note, Part One_

...I guess I just want J to know, to know that their father’s thoughts in those last terrifying three minutes were of them. That no matter what happened in the past or what might happen in the future, they were loved and they were forgiven, and isn’t that what all of us want, in the end? Love and forgiveness. Wouldn’t that be something?

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO AND WELCOME TO WHATEVER THIS IS.
> 
> So, approximately seven million years ago I signed up for the magicians holiday exchange, completely fucking forgetting that the months of October and November are absolutely hell for teachers. long story I missed the deadline, but I loved my prompt so now that I'm on break, I decided to give finishing this baby a try. There is an absolutely STUNNING piece of art that goes along with this fic [here](https://eliotsvests.tumblr.com/post/189784773843/quentin-has-a-rough-time-working-on-his-next) made by the spectacular Aaron!
> 
> (inspired by the movie The Note)
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy this humble holiday offering of mine. It'll probably be about 3-5 chapters but anything can happen.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for "Now Until Forever"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875554) by [eliotsvests (surprisegents)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surprisegents/pseuds/eliotsvests)




End file.
